Time is NOT on your side....

Well, in the world of project management, time is not on your side. I'm sure you've all read/heard/experienced the effects of adding resources to late, realizing that something is missing to late, that required delivery date have changed to late, etc.......my recommendation - increasing gains:

• make sure the focus/pressure is present at the START of the project
• don't give in to any delays - resist the urge to take the easy way out
• don't let resources sit idle, there's always something that could be done, even in start up phase
• take advantage of any external delays, don't let your rhythm/dates be affected by external frictional sources.

Keep your project time lines real, aggressively complete tasks and keep any gained time to the side.

Getting Mrs. Clinton - Peggy Noonan

By PEGGY NOONAN

Getting Mrs. Clinton
March 28, 2008; Page W18

I think we've reached a signal point in the campaign. This is the point where, with Hillary Clinton, either you get it or you don't. There's no dodging now. You either understand the problem with her candidacy, or you don't. You either understand who she is, or not. And if you don't, after 16 years of watching Clintonian dramas, you probably never will...........

http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html#

Cooking a crab!

There's an ole' tale about how you cook a crab by putting them in cold water and heating it up a little at a time until they're ready to eat...so they don't know what's happening. Well, for all my experience in IT, managing projects, etc. - I'm finding myself confirming that theory and being near well cooked. It all started on a cool sunny morning when I was asked to provide a quick small request, something that should take no more then 2-3 hours for a large client. Well, one month later and a lot of heating up - the small request has become a good size project about 1/4 of the way complete. Just a warning to all you potential cooked crabs out there - if you're in water that's seems to be getting a little warm - well it's time to see if you're in a pot or not.

(crab photo from: http://flyingfishshop.com/seacritter.html)

Excellent!

Essay on why large companies are not effective (for programmers anyway)

...If you're not allowed to implement new ideas, you stop having them....
http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html

Flip!

• Know who you are
• Do it exceptionally well
• Keep it simple
• Be cost effective
• and being pretty doesn't hurt (Mohammad Ali)

Those simple, easy to follow guidelines has served many product and A LOT OF PEOPLE very well. Here's another example, the Flip (write up in The New York Times).

Ning on the move!

I've had two Ning networks for some time: http://itprojectmanagement.ning.com/
and even though there's few in the network (yes, I do take it personally...and it makes me sad), the tool (Ning.com) itself is GREAT! Here's a recent article about it in TechCrunch: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/20/ning-all-our-charts-point-up-and-to-the-right/